The Gift
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: A House/Wilson slash alternate ending to It’s a Wonderful Lie. A drunken Wilson feels guilty for being mean to House on Christmas and goes to apologize, and ask for a ride home, but that’s not his real reason for visiting.


A perfect present: A House/Wilson slash fic taking place at the end of season four episode _It's a Wonderful Lie_. A drunken Wilson feels guilty for being mean to House on Christmas and goes to his friend to apologize, and ask for a ride home, but that's not his real reason for visiting House. Wilson has a gift for House, but doesn't know how to give it to him. Warning, slash, mentions of child sexual abuse, foul language, slightly OOC. This is related to a lot of my other House/Wilson fics (the story of a scar, and information in, A Christmas Story, The Doctor's Doctor, etc, even though they aren't actually connected.)

I walked into House's office after seeing his team leave; I wanted to apologize, and I needed a favor from him. So I said, "Hey, I uh, I was just thinking I should stop in here and check on you." I managed to string the words together nearly perfectly "You alright?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" House asked, trying to sound like he was mad at me, but not really putting it off. He never worked as hard to be incredibly annoying when it's just me…and if he's exhausted. "I just solved a really cool case, not even dying…well maybe not dying. Her cancer's back. Breast tissue in her leg."

"You have a lot of reasons to not be alright. The weather's really cold and that always makes your leg hurt worse. It could be the case; you told me this morning you were thinking child abuse, which always—is always upsetting, especially this particular patient, a parent who never lies…and it's Christmas which you hate…." I stopped speaking, mainly because he looked like I had just kicked him, and because I was drunk and talking like an idiot.

"Have you been drinking?" House asked, a slightly satisfied smile on his face, which disappeared quickly. "You're drunk aren't you?"

"A little bit, yeah, yes I am." He wasn't smiling anymore, but at least the hurt look had vanished from his face. "I was sort of hoping you could give me a ride, back to uh—your place."

"You do know how many of these babies I've had today, right?" he asked, holding up the prescription bottle, but not actually opening it.

"Um, I'm gonna go with fifty, but I'm probably a little bit off. Plus you're less likely to run somebody over since you're used to driving while stoned. Please? I really need a ride."

"Fine, but under two conditions. First take off that stupid hat," House ordered, and I obliged, tearing it from my head, not even checking to see if my hair was okay. "And if you say one word about Christmas, or secret Santa, or anything even remotely related to either one, I'm pulling over and kicking you out of my car."

"Like you could kick anybody," I giggled, stupidly. Drunk, my usual inhibitions were washed away. I knew I shouldn't have said it but the time I figured that out, it was too late.

"Wow, you really are drunk; you're probably more stoned than me." This made him laugh a little, as we stumbled towards the parking lot.

"Look, uh—about before…I shouldn't yell at you so much, especially not about this kind of stuff. I—there's no excuse for that, not even being drunk. So, I'm sorry, and I'm gonna try and do better. My New Year's resolution is to stop yelling at you."

"Might wanna go with something a little easier to actually do, like become the first astronaut to walk on Mars?" he snipped, lowering himself into the driver's seat with care. "If you knew about half of the stuff I do and get away with you'd yell at me a lot more."

"As long as you don't steal my prescription pad again, I don't really have any reason to be mean. Plus, I'm the only person who's nice to you, which makes it a lot worse when _I _hurt you, than when anybody else does." As he pulled into the parking space next to his apartment, Greg got quiet, not so much out of anger or sadness, but because he realized I wasn't doing a good job of speaking and he didn't want to listen to me ramble on idiotically. Once inside, he took off his coat, dropped it on the floor, and stretched out on the coat with his feet up. I tried to sit beside him, but he rubbed his leg, and made that, "I need some space right" face. He then turned on the TV and took out his Vicodin bottle, shaking it like a pack of cigarettes, and poured out a handful. "Whoa—how many of those are you taking?"

"I'm gonna go with, uh—fifty," he quoted, in an eerie emotionless tone.

"House!"

"Wilson! Come on, you're drunk out of your mind; why can it do the same? I promise not to drink any eggnog, or anything else."

"That bad, huh?" I asked, moving to the arm of the sofa near his head. "Do you wanna go to the bedroom and relax where it's more comfortable, and if you wanted, I mean, uh—if you felt like I should uh…"

"Shut up. I'll scoot over and you can put your hands around me—just be quiet, okay? I can't concentrate with you lecturing me all the time."

"I would have thought the whole point of taking a fist full of narcotics is to try really hard not to concentrate." House grimaced, and I did too. "Sorry I didn't mean to— I'm sorry."

"I have to concentrate on something asinine so that I can _not _concentrate on the really big stuff. When I was a kid and he was…I'd close my eyes and count in my head from the second the door opened until he left. One, two, three…fifty, he's on the bed. "Hi, Greg. Having a little trouble sleeping?" …One-twenty-seven, pajama bottoms around my ankles, fingers of one hand wrapped around my—the other one is poking around inside. "Shh, that's a good boy." Two-forty-six, lips press to the top of my head. "Who's my special little guy, hmm?" two-forty, stabbing pain like a flashlight, feels like it's gonna shoot out of my stomach. Something hot and sticky trickles down my leg."

I could feel the contents of my stomach starting to shift but I didn't want to get up and hurt him. "By five hundred, I'd gotten accustomed to the pounding. By a thousand, he was more erratic, less specific with his thrusts. Two thousand, he's stopped and the stuff shoots out all over inside of me. By about forty five hundred my own body had—then he usually left, but I'd keep counting for another thousand—seconds? I dunno what, to make sure he was really gone. Now I just lay in bed counting until I can either fall asleep or pass out or whatever."

I wanted to sear, then wrap him up in a jack, hat and scarf, drive back to the hospital and take him to the psych ward where they would help him, but I knew he'd never agree to any therapy or anti-depressants. So all I could do was sit there, holding his body, stroking his hair, while he counted for over an hour and a half. House fell asleep around midnight and I didn't move or wake him. He only slept for a few hours before his eyes opened slowly, and he sighed, looking all around, disoriented.

"You wanna go to the bedroom?" I asked, feeling a lot more sober than before. Greg nodded, pulling himself up, and limping towards his room.

"Just gonna sleep in my jeans and this," he informed me, laying down, pulling the covers up over himself. When I climbed in beside him, he automatically clamped onto me. And even though he wasn't speaking out loud, I could feel his lips moving against my lips, as he counted again. I didn't sleep at all that night, which wasn't unusual for a trip to the apartment. I spent most of my time either trying to come p with a way to make Greg feel better, and deciding whether or not to give him the gift-wrapped box in my left pocket.

In the morning House looked up at me, wiped his dry face, and then hobbled to the bathroom, used the toilet, took a shower, dried himself off, and pulled on clean jeans and a t-shirt, while I made breakfast. I was putting eggs, pancakes and bacon on plates when he padded in, on what I knew had to be at least two pills, but I didn't say anything about that.

"Look, I know how you feel when it comes to this sort of thing, but I got you a present, and I would really like it if you unwrapped the thing before telling me how much you hate it."

"Why are _you_ giving me a Christmas present? You're Jewish, and I'm…nothing. There's no reason to even think about it. Bes9des Christ was probably born in the summer, not December."

"I spent three years looking for this specific thing. I searched Ebay, joined about a million mailing lists, and posted on message boards. By the time I got a hold of someone it was past your birthday."

"What the Hell was so important for you to spend that much time on _me_?" House sneered, but unwrapped the present all the same. When he looked inside the box I could have sworn he was smiling, but pretended not to notice. "These are tickets from the first rock concert I ever went to, and they're signed. Where did you get these? These aren't just from the same tour, but from the actually show I was at—how…how…wow."

"I finally found this woman who was a huge fan and followed them around for years. This wasn't the only thing she had with signatures on it, which is why she let me buy them. Apparently she was a groupie."

"I—what—why," House was flabbergasted, which in it self was a Christmas miracle. I didn't expect him to thank me, wasn't even sure if he could. The fact that he liked the gift that it made him even momentarily happy was good enough for me.

"Your breakfast is getting cold. You should probably put the tickets away before you eat," I suggested, pouring syrup on my pancakes. Greg was giving me the "you're such an idiot," look. "I remember when you told me about going to see this show. It seemed to make you happy you remembering it, so I started to look for old Rolling Stones tickets, and I found a lot, but I knew you wouldn't want just anything, 'cuz that wouldn't actually have meaning."

"I uh—you probably wasted an entire months salary on this, a useless, perfunctory gift that I can't read, play with, eat, or use in nay way."

"Those are signed by the entire band, which means you could theoretically sell them for big bucks, or you could put them on display somewhere. I just thought that—I know you're not used to getting presents, and I wanted to try and make up for your not getting anything good when you were a kid."

"Well then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought…sorry. It's just that I don't really know what I'm supposed to do now. Hasn't ever really done anything like this."

"You and Stacy didn't—sorry. Um—what I meant to say was, that uh, didn't you used to do something, with—um, for the holidays?"

"She usually picked something out, and I'd get it, wrap it up, then she'd pretend to be surprised. Made everything simple for me. I always said I didn't want anything, so I'd usually end up, um—getting…a really nice Christmas Eve. Stacy always wanted to go to church in the morning, but I'd sleep in."

"I should have let Julie pick out her presents."

"She only did it herself, because she didn't trust me to go out and not come back with a Catholic school uniform or bad lingerie." House smiled as he finished his pancakes, and took another one from my plates. "It's a compliment."

"If I had known you were going to eat so much, I would have made more pancakes."

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda, whatever. That might have been redundant. Oh well, not like I can go back in time, and even if I could erasing this conversation would be about as low down on my list of things to fix as—I dunno, sleeping with Cuddy."

"I thought you enjoyed tha, plus you get to use it against her, even now—all these years later."

"Yeah, but I still had the handcuff bruise for a week, and a permanent scar from the whip thingy."

"I don't believe any of that bullshit about Cuddy and bondage, you know that right? I'm barely willing to believe that the two of you slept together in the first place." House reached for the last piece of bacon from my plate, but I snatched it up, popping the greasy morsel into my mouth first. "Mmm, yummy."

"You're mean," A five-year-old version of Greg pouted, trying to look hurt, but again not pulling it off. That's probably his biggest problem, I think Greg never learned how to act like a real person and doesn't know which behaviors are appropriate and in which situation, and rather than pretend and risk failure he doesn't even bother to try. Usually when he got like this, sad, scared, nervous, worried, upset, or childishly insecure, I tried to figure out what he wanted and (if I could) get it for him. "It's okay. Not really hungry anymore—actually I ate a little too much."

"There's not much to do for a—don't laugh at me—tummy ache. I think I have some Pepto-Bismol if you want it, but otherwise, okay—about the present, I didn't—I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I jut wanted to see you smile."

"Jimmy, I think I might have over reacted before. Not really used to getting real presents from people who aren't obligated—though…like I said, just not really used to it. Don't know what I'm supposed to say or do. I wanna—god this is embarrassing. I wanna say—wanna say thank you, but, it can't possible be _that _simple."

"It is. Most people say it ten times a day but they don't really mean what they say. Yeah, you should thank a waiter for bringing your food so they won't spit in it, or worse, but the poor schmuck who puts silverware and napkins on the table, probably doesn't even want to be thanked, pitied, whatever."

"You make people appreciate being told they're about to die. They say thank you when you give them the news."

"That's shock. They don't really know how to respond. I'm—kind, at leas t I pretend to be kind, and I can relate to people—but I'm not sure how I really do it."

"Thanks," he whispered, trying so hard to sound sincere that his failure was more pathetic than anything else wrong with him. His crippled leg is sad, and he hurt more most mornings than 90 of the population will ever experience. His childhood was something out of a modern Charles Dickens novel, without the poverty issues. He's an asshole, completely devoid of friends, family, or lovers—except for me. But when he looked at me, trying with all his might to thank me for a simple Christmas gift and failed, all those other things seemed benign, boring, and easy to fix. I didn't care about anything else any more. The only thing that mattered to me was doing whatever it took to make sure he never felt like this again.

"It's just a slip of paper with some colored printing and black squiggles all over it. You don't get a lot of gifts, and the ones you do get are so idiotic and impersonally you'd feel better not getting anything. Because of tha, when I go out and buy you something you actually like, it feels as if I did something really special."

"You did do something really special. I told you about an important event in my life and you not only remembered it, but used that information to get me a present- you knew I'd like, with emotional significance, and value. You put a lot of time and effort, and energy and love into finding something for _me_. Nobody gives me presents, not for my birthday, or Christmas, or Arbor Day—do people exchange gifts on Arbor Day? Never min—but you didn't just by me a Rolling Stones t-shirt, which would have been cool, but stupid, you got me—you--." It seemed pretty obvious, as he was talking, that House was getting further and further away from whatever he wanted to tell me, but not on purpose.

"You can relax, House. I know what you're trying to tell me. You're welcome. Will you look me in the eyes please? I have something important to say and I have to make sure you getting it. Okay, good. _I love you._"

"Yeah, I know. You say that all the time. Of course, you tell just about anything that casts a shadow how much you love it, so it might not be such a big wonderful thing. I know how you feel, don't have to keep reminding me."

"I don't tell you I love you because I think you've forgotten. I say it because of the way your eyes light up every time you hear it. I say it because I don't think any man has ever told you that before. I say it because—" House cut me off, again.

"Shut up! I'm—uh—I'm sorry, but I hate it when you do that stuff, especially right now. Didn't sleep well. Didn't feel good. Had a dream," his voice trailed off, and I watched as he squeezed his eyes shut, moving his lips soundlessly. I tried to count with him, but could barely keep up. Soon he sighed, laying his head back against the top of his chair, eyes opening slowly. "It hurts today. I mean, it always hurts but usually other stuff keeps my mind off of _that _pain, even when I'm alone. I've got this cold stingy thing in my wrists and my chest, and I can't—thing come to me, things I don't want to think about. Things I wish I could forget but can't. I see stuff I didn't wanna see, stuff I tried to keep my eyes shut so tight durring, but my eyes never stayed closed the whole time. Now, whenever I close my eyes, the images jut come faster and faster. I sort of like having you around though. Good distraction."

"I'd be happy to be your distraction—if you'd let me." House laughed when I told him this, as if I were the biggest idiot on the planet, but at the same time almost looked relieved to hear it all the same. "What can I do to help?" I asked, already knowing the answer, _nothing_. Only he didn't say that. He didn't say anything, just sort of shrugged, watching me carefully, tiredly, in pain, scared, and remarkably desperate. "There isn't anything in the world you could do to make me stop loving you. If you will—if you let me, I'd like to spend more time here, try and make things more comfortable, you know, love you."

"Give me drugs?" he asked in that annoying, evasive way of his, and this time I knew exactly what to say in this situation, which was rare for me, and I smiled too, even though it wasn't really funny, but with House I knew I had to fight sarcasm with sarcasm.

"Of course. I'm the one who got you hooked on the stuff in the first place, wouldn't be fair to take the pills away now. Besides, you're just as happy to get a super sized bottle of Vicodin for your birthday as a crappy sweater."

"It wouldn't be fair, but you've done it before, and you'll do the same thing again and again. You'll yell at me, hurt me, dump me, marry somebody you don't belong with, get divorced again, and every other bad thing you could possibly do. Won't ever hold me down and do—the other thing to me, which is pretty much the only reason I won't ever end this thing we have."

"I don't wanna do any of those things. If I screw up, hurt you some how; just tell me—okay? You let me know whenever I do anything even the least bit stupid."

"Starting with what you just said?" he snorted. "You say something stupid every five seconds…but maybe we could sort of give your idea a try. If you're really okay with it, that is, if you don't mind. I suck at this stuff."

"And I don't?" I offered myself up as a sacrificial lamb, mainly because he seemed so bothered by his problem. He was feeling vulnerable and scared and I was willing to do anything to make him feel better—a thought I had fifty times a day.

"You're better at it than me," he admitted in one of those rare moments of total self-doubt. He held the cane with both hands, placing it between his laced fingers, tapping against the floor. Most people think the does absolutely everything to be as annoying as humanly possible, but a lot of his shit isn't about that. He was mean, nasty, and cruel to keep people from getting close enough to be able to hurt him, but for the most part when he say s something inappropriate he just doesn't know any better. All the stuff he says about Cuddy is intentional, but usually he can't even see the line between edgy and creepy.

"Yeah well, if you were better than me at absolutely everything I would like hanging out with you. But, uh, as far as relationships go, I'm not—do I have to remind you about the three ex-wives _I_ have?"

"No, but you were an idiot for getting married the first time…and the second time, and the third time. You can't get a divorce from somebody if you aren't married to him or her. It's really simple."

"Good point."

"See, this is exactly why hate you knowing about my—history. Any time I start feeling even the least bit down, or depressed, or scared, you act like I'm some poor pathetic child who needs to be pitied, and patronized."

"Sometimes I think you are just a pathetic child. You just threw a huge temper tantrum because I'm being nice to you."

"You are such a moron. That wasn't you being nice. Nice was you making breakfast, or the concert tickets, or—I don't know, something, but what you juts did—you're pretending that everything I do and say is perfect and wonderful and—it's not. I'm not, and if you pretend I am just to keep me from feeling hurt then I'm gonna think it's okay to do stupid and mean stuff around people who don't get me, and then I'm gonna crash and burn."

I grabbed House then, wrapping my arms around his thin frame, not letting go of him, even though he flinched, and I held him, and I held him, and I held him, but Greg didn't cry, or yell or do anything. He looked up at me a couple of times, as if to ask, "Is this okay? Am I allowed to do this?" Then he'd go back to sitting there, silently, with his face pressed so close to me, it felt like we were the same person.

"I do love you. Out of all the girlfriends, and wives, and friends and—you're the only person I know that I've never gotten tired of. Whatever caused my marriages to end caused me to fall out love with my wives, that's not going to happen here. I can't promise I'll never die, get sick, or mad, but I'm not—I could never hate you."

"It turns out saying stuff like that doesn't actually help anybody. You can promise all you want, but what helps, isn't making the promise itself, but actually keeping it. Promises are useless when they get broken and if—I'm not a healthy person. One liver can only handle so much booze and Vicodin, eventually I'll just," House sighed, sort of trailing off. "I might be brilliant probably the best in my field, possibly the best there will ever be, but—even if I _promise_ never to drink or do drugs or speed, or—nobody's going to waste a liver on a guy who doesn't want to be healthy. If you keep those promises for however long I can—taking care of me while I'm alive will make me feel better, but I'll always be scared you're gonna leave, and then when I do die, I'll be gone and you won't need to take care of anybody once I…"

"If you cut back on the pills."

"My leg will hurt—I mean it always hurts, but sometimes, with the exact right amount of pills I feel close enough to—I dunno."

"You could drink less, or not at all, exchange beers or whiskey, or whatever for a couple of extra—"

"No!" That was all he said, refusing to explain why, and I knew I should have known the reason. I suppose I did, in part, but I hated when he did stuff like that. Even still, I didn't push for more information, more of an answer, more—anything. I knew he would tell me eventually and it would be all the more meaningful because he _wanted_ to, not because I _forced _him to. "I'm not afraid of the dark, I hate it, but I'm not scared. Mostly I lay in bed at night, watching the clock, sleeping for an hour or two here and there, and I—the booze and the pills help me deal with my screwed up pain and my screwed up fears. I know I'm an addict. I know how weak and pathetic it makes me to keep on taking them, and I know that it's wrong. I know I'm not dealing with anything, just making excuses, and it—I don't—this is who I am. There's no getting over what happened to me, no sweet, well behaved butterfly of a grown up House in side of crippled, used up cocoon of a body. I'm alive. I'm living, trying, doing the best I can, and that's all anybody can do. You can't fix me because this is all there is. It's who I am. I've tied anti-depressants, therapy, talking about what happened, tranquilizers, drinking too much, not drinking, eating until I puke, starving myself, cutting, casual, sex, rough sex, when I was about eighteen I went out with this guy about the same age as my dad, tried straight sex, crying, laughing, running, sports, being mean, not being anything, attempted suicide, writing angry letters and not sending them, hating him, being afraid of him, forgiving him, prayer—all of kinds of prayer actually. I have wished for, I don't even know what to wish for. I have done all that there is to do, and I know for a fact there is no fix, no cure, no answer, no closure, no—nothing except to live or die, and I'm not ready to die, so whatever it is you think you're doing, just stop okay? I said STOP." House had began by shouting at me, but either his resolve had faded, or he trusted me to listen to him without being yelled at.

"I don't want to force anything on you," I started to explain, but he cut in.

"Then don't."

"I love you—I know, I say it every five minutes and you're sick of hearing it. I don't want you to change. I don't care how many Vicodin you take, or when you drink, but it hurts me to see you this bad. I don't care how we do this, but let me help you. Let me take even just the tiniest bit of your pain away."

"And if I say no?" he asked.

"Then we'll both hurt, but we can survive that. I'll still love you, still be with you. Nothing has to change unless you're willing—unless you want it to." For a long time (an hour maybe two or three, or four) House just stared at me, occasionally opening his mouth slightly, then closing those soft lips, his eyes pained, leaking from time to time. He took two pills out of the prescription bottle, looked down at them, then at me, put them back, and finally decided on one, dry swallowing it. Greg sat there, looking at me like a small child after a bad nightmare.

"I like things the way they are now."

"You like everything the way it is right now?" I asked, hating myself for hurting him that way, but I was right, and we both knew it. These things had to be said.

"No, but—what if stuff…what if, what if the stuff I do like changes and the things I can't stand stay the same?" he asked, flicking his tongue over his lips, practically whimpering.

"That's what you're really afraid of, isn't it?" I said, reaching out to take his hand in mine. "I won't let it happen, I won't. I prom—I won't let anybody put you through that. I know you think I'm like everyone else, trying to hurt you in every way imaginable, but I'm not those people. If I could, I spend the rest of my life as your human shield, protecting you from the people who would do those things."

"What about the people who wanna—I mean, I know nobody would wanna do _that_ to me now, but still, feel like I gotta be scared about it. I can't stop it. I can't make myself stop feeling scared, and I hate it."

"I'm not really surprised. You've seen just about ever horror known to man. There's a reason schools preach absence to kids. They can't comprehend what it means to have sex when they decide to do something stupid with each other—and you were five, you didn't have a—and I'm gonna stop now cause you're looking at me like I just hit you or something."

"No I know you would never-ru—I know you wouldn't do _that_ to me. Almost even feel safe with you. You really wanna help me? Oh—okay. If you think it'll work, I'll do what you say. I trust you. Sort of. I guess."


End file.
